George Bernard Shaw moves permanently from Dublin to England, after which he begins his writing career as the ghostwriter of a musical column in London satirical weekly The Hornet.
April – Émile Zola's L'Assommoir begins serialization in Le Bien public. Its low-life themes cause it to be suspended after six episodes; serialization resumes in July in La République des lettres.
July – William Heffer takes over his first bookshop in Cambridge (England), primarily as a stationer at this date.[3]
December – The first United States edition of Mark Twain's first individual extended work of fiction, the BildungsromanThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer, illustrated by True Williams, is published by the American Publishing Company. An authorised non-illustrated British edition has appeared in early June from Chatto & Windus in London (with the first review appearing on June 24 in a British magazine) and pirated editions have appeared in Canada and Germany.